Prom costs rise less than overall prices, OSU economist says

At least that’s what an Ohio State University economist found after taking a look at some
real world data and crunching the numbers.

Research scientist Jay Zagorsky said he began his informal study after his daughter’s recent
junior prom. Zagorsky decided it might be fun to total up various bills for the event, and then
gather some data from the U.S. government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics website.

While the bureau’s Consumer Price Index doesn’t track prom prices directly, it does directly
track prices for such prom items as women’s dresses, women’s shoes, men’s suits, men’s shoes,
photographer fees, haircuts and beer, “which covers the age-old tradition of sneaking in a drink
when the adults are not looking,” Zagorsky wrote on Ohio State’s Buckeye Voices blog.

After combining 10 categories from the CPI, Zagorsky found that, since 1998, the price of
going to the prom has gone up 17 percent, less than half of the 43 percent increase seen in overall
prices.

“Proms will never be cheap,” Zagorsky said. “However, it is nice to know that over time the
real cost of attending this rite of passage is falling,” at least relative to the cost of
everything else.